The first week of work has come to an end and all I can do is take a moment to analyze how different my life is from any other place I have lived in. For example, I need to take a train to go to work. India’s trains and the more than 23 million passengers that ride them each day. The train system is a perfect analogy for India, it’s fresh and beautiful and, at times, repulsive all at once…yet there is something magical and spiritual about every train ride.

The train is an environment where you have to slow down because there are too many people to do anything. This idea of “slow travel” can be traced back to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. The Romantics warned this modern fixation on speed was a self-made “iron cage” that would lead to alienation, loss of meaning, and an unwillingness towards self-reflection. The remedy, they proposed, was deceleration to find meaning and a space to mediate while in a constantly moving world…the Mumbai train is the perfect example of this phenomenon. I have come to know myself quite well because I am forced to stop and just be with myself something that had not happened in a while.

But more than just a meditative space the train in Mumbai is considered both a transformative technology and a symbol of British imperial oppression, the railway erased once-formidable distances, generated trade and intellectual exchange, and made travel accessible to the masses (1). Simultaneously, however, it fostered environments that bred infectious disease, created exploitative labor conditions, and irrevocably altered the natural landscape (1). British colonists viewed the train as a harbinger of progress—a tool to abolish the caste system and forge a capitalist society because it provided people a cheap mode of transportation to work and forced people to interact with each other on close spaces (1). Instead, the train evolved into a space that was invariably Indian: beauty and chaos in tandem that, ultimately, takes you were you need to go. Additionally, one can see young people dangling from the side of the train as the train breaks through the tightly dense Mumbai. In my apartment we call them Indian Desperados, as this is a typical scene in a Bollywood movie. Thus, after realizing the popularity of this practice I realized why on average 10 people die on the on the train.

When I finally get out of the train I walk 10 minutes across a market to reach work. The street is paved, though it is so narrow that it clearly was never meant for cars. It’s still complete pandemonium, as people move along shoulder-to-shoulder, fighting for space with old rickshaws, bicycles, motorcycles, donkey carts and scooters. Most scooters carry an entire family, father and mother on the seat with a child sandwiched in between them and another standing on the little platform in front of her father and holding onto the handlebars. In one short section of the street, instead of shops there was a brick wall in front of the police barracks. Creative entrepreneurs had mounted small mirrors on the wall. Their clients sat on packing crates before the mirrors – watching as they received a haircut. Others faced their barbers as they received shaves with old-fashioned, straight-edged, razors that the men paused to sharpen every once in a while.

At the end of every block the food vendors ruled. They stood behind old, dirty, wooden and metal carts, frying all kinds of foods I couldn’t identify in boiling oil. The noise in the market is deafening. Hawkers of knock-off, designer jeans are yelling their prices and haggling with their customers. Everywhere I’ve been in this country there is the sound of cars, the ever-present, three-wheeled motorcycle “rickshaws” used as taxicabs, bicycles and traditional rickshaws, buses and trucks, scooters and motorcycles, all honking at one another as they jockey for position on the streets and roads. It’s like a high-speed game of chicken on narrow streets with the density of a parking lot at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving.

But the most curious thing I have seen is goats. Goats of all sizes and colors moving freely around the market place eating and playing with small children. Later, I came to know that the market I walk through is a Muslim market and that in their religion it is believed families must care for a goat for a number of years and, after the goat has become a part of a family, kill the goat in honor of Allah. This practice serves to mimic the story of Abraham and the sacrifice God wanted him to do (Genesis 22). I would argue people do allow themselves to fall in love with their goat since, at the market, you see street vendors and sitting on the street with their goat caressing the goat´s head and calling it sweet names like “lamby or baba.” The goat are called home along with the children and some are even given cloth dippers to not dirty the street. I cannot imagine falling in love and then having to kill a pet. This practice just shows the love and devotion some Muslim individuals have for their belief system.

But is this moral…?

To answer this question I turned to Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the story of Abraham in Fear and Trembling. “Abraham’s situation is different. By his act he transgressed the ethical altogether and had a higher telos outside it, in a relation to which he suspended it,” (Kierkegaard, page 100). By using the story of Abraham, Kierkegaard states that ethics are made by men to interact with each other and because of that such can be overruled by God´s wishes (the objective truth). After all, our duty (the highest moral standard we can possibly take) is God’s wish. Thus, Kierkegaard believes that while ethics are important to society, in order for an individual to be truly good she must obey God through faith and engage in his wishes. Then Kierkegaard adds, “As soon as the individual would assert himself in his particularity over against the universal, he sins; and only by acknowledging this can he be reconciled again with the universal,”( Kierkegaard, page 99). In the following sentence Kierkegaard comments about the individual’s relation to God as the ultimate thing. After all, he states that no man can assert himself more moral than God since every individual has an end task that was designated to him. Then even if this task goes beyond a man’s morals, he must follow it since God ultimately decides what is good even if it can seem cruel, like killing a goat hone has come to love. This notion follows perfectly the idea that God is the objective truth and, thus, possesses ultimate knowledge about good and evil we as simple humans cannot completely understand. Additionally, Kierkegaard states that by following the command of God, even if such goes against the laws established my men, one becomes a “knight of faith” or a true believer.

However one must wonder, how is it possible to know when God actually talking to an individual. After all, if it is moral to breaks the laws when divine intervention dictates, one can suppose that other humans will claim “God commanded me to do x” to excuse despicable behavior. This scenario would generate moral relativism. However, this is not a problem for Kierkegaard since he would claim that what we (as humans) perceive as moral realism is different parts of the ultimate truth your perception of reality cannot understand. Then, if this is the case, we would find ourselves in a state of moral realism that is not relative since we are all living under the same laws even if such are applied in an individual base.

The Internship

There has been a major change of plans regarding the work I will be doing here in India. First, I will no longer be in the working in the psychology department of the hospital but in the education department at the place where children live. The change happened because most of the children treated here are from low income areas and do not speak English.

I will be exchange of standardizing classes given to children while they are in the center but not undergoing treatment. This is new to me since I never considered the hospital responsibility to educate its patients but, there are right if children do not have opportunities, why not develop the children cognitive and social abilities through education instead of having them constantly watch TV? Why not provide children with knowledge about their place in the world or critical body functions, not only helping them navigate the world but develop confidence, social skills and the ability to think critically about the society around them (even if what is though during class is not the standard school curriculum). Why not provide education that would guarantee a better quality of life to young children especially if it can be easily implemented e you have the children close by and with no other commitment. Indeed, by addressing problems that traditional education is not addressing (such as children not liking to read or tolerance of other beliefs) these centers are fostering much needed abilities in children and generating scholars, medical professionals, arts, and agents of change in low income communities (agents that will come with new ideas and projects in places were potential is unlimited).

Additionally, “going to school” not only improves the children cognitive abilities but also their social and communication skills. Indeed, by being forced to interact with other children from a wide range of background and education level undergoing the same or a similar illness children have the ability to practice making friends without the self-deprecating fears of being “seen as another” because of the physical symptoms of cancer treatment. This is a perfect way to keep the child developing psychologically and socially with is crucial for mental health. After all, if a child is not interacting with others they have stopped growing since ideas are not questioned and shared. This stagnation can cause deep rotted psychological problems that could influence the psychological state of the patient and, thus, ultimately influence treatment physical response because of the mind body connection (see previous blogs for more details on this connection).

Other particularities

Because of Indian ideas of cleanliness, everyone takes their shoes of and walk around barefoot in the center.

Also at 4 pm all staff stops work and drinks tea together for 15 minutes, I have noticed this fosters an ambiance of camaraderie since people from different departments interact with each other in a regular basis. This, I have notices, fosters a cooperative work environment where people know each other and go out of their way to help out in different projects even if not directly associated with their work. The work environments does not seem overly stressful but, rather, very cooperative and group focused.